Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed all members of a vaccine advisory board to restore “public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda,” he announced in a Monday op-ed.
Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published late Monday afternoon that America is facing a “crisis of public trust…toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves.”
To restore what Kennedy sees as Americans’ distrust in the healthcare system and ensure that they receive “the safest vaccines possible,” the secretary announced that HHS will retire all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.
The committee is responsible for evaluating the safety, efficacy and clinical need of vaccines and then presenting its findings to the Centers for Disease Control.
“The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” Kennedy claimed in the op-ed.
Kennedy added that most of the panel’s members “have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines.”
The New York Times reported that the panel’s members are screened for major conflicts of interest, and if there is an indirect conflict of interest, they disclose it and abstain from voting on related matters.
The current members will be replaced with new members “currently under consideration,” HHS said in a statement.
“The new members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry. They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry—unafraid to ask hard questions,” Kennedy wrote in the Journal.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who was a crucial vote for Kennedy’s confirmation as HHS secretary, said in a speech defending his vote, “If confirmed, [Kennedy] will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.”
Following Kennedy’s announcement of the panel switch-up, Cassidy wrote on X, “Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”
The Associated Press said that the panel had been in a “state of flux” under Kennedy’s leadership, pointing to a decision that the secretary made last month to change COVID-19 vaccine recommendations without consulting the panel.
Kennedy announced on May 27 that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, calling it “common sense” and “good science.
“Some doctors and public health leaders called the move concerning and confusing,” the Associated Press reported at the time.
